


Do you know how I feel?

by miloron (ocoa)



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Aromantic JR, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 12:49:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11509785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocoa/pseuds/miloron
Summary: In a world where meeting your romantic soulmate lets you see colour, Kim Jonghyun wonders if he should want to.





	Do you know how I feel?

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up with plot suggestions or anything at my [askFM page](https://ask.fm/bugiron) hoho

When Kim Jonghyun was born, it was to flakes of grey and white and names littered in white lines all over his arms. When he grew old enough to read, he picks out a few, sees them fade as friends leave and grow more ingrained as he meets more. He keeps only a few permanent ones, the words etched into skin like they were burned in. _Turmoil_ , the doctor said to his parents in gentler words, _tears and pain, a life of hardship_.

 

But permanent.

 

To Jonghyun, who’s ever known the pain of a soulmate leaving, and the pain of one of the many names on his skin fading, the names become a lifeline.

 

He writes them down where he can, from the first stroke of a English name to the last line that makes up 기. He whispers their names in the dark, testing it out with the fervency of a scared child who’s paranoid of being alone.

 

_Aaron Kwak._

 

_Kang Dong Ho._

 

_Hwang Min Hyun._

 

_Choi Min Ki._

 

The names give him solace, and the weight is a comfort for fleeting scars.

 

When Jonghyun is 13, the talk of colours start to seep in. His friends crow about the brightness of green, and yellow, and red, and aquamarine, the softness of the blue in the sky, the fire in the evening light. He sees only grey, and starts to wonder if there’s something wrong with him. He reads books, reads about the colours, slides his fingers on the plastic pictures that sample the most intense of reds that couldn’t be described when all he sees is dark dark grey.

 

The grey doesn’t disappear, not when he first listens to the words of _Marshall Mathers_ , whose words give him something that he cannot describe and he wonders if colours are something similar, whose words give him a voice, give him an outlet to describe the whirlwind that consumes his insides. Nor does it disappear when he meets the Pledis CEO, all packed from Gangwon-do, heart hammering with the desire to perform, to show something. It doesn’t even disappear when he finally meets the people he wanted to meet for so long, when he can put faces to names.

 

It doesn’t disappear, and somehow… Jonghyun realises it doesn’t need to.

 

Some days he asks his best friends, when the curiosity strikes, and they look at each other, unable to describe the colours.

 

“It’s freeing. Like the world suddenly fits what you see and what you feel.” Minhyun says, ever the poet.

 

“I think it makes the world finally feel complete.” Ren laughed, grinning gleefully.

 

Seeing his friends with their soulmates, hearing their answers, and thinking about them, Jonghyun doesn’t ever understand. Because he’s never felt that.

 

There are a million shades of grey and the intensity is so blinding he’s never felt the need to see colour. He’s never felt empty, out of the loop, uncomfortable.

 

When he was born the world was in white and grey.

 

Jonghyun doesn’t know if he ever wanted it different.

**Author's Note:**

> First in what I hope would be many Ace/Aro!JR fics I'm gonna write. I was gonna write romantic relationships between the Nu'est members themselves, but I decided against it since I didn't want them pairing off and cutting themselves out from the rest of the group. I think I talked about writing this in one of my recent fics, since I love having ace-spectrum fics, so I decided to write it earlier. Depending on my feelings, i would probably end up writing more on this topic some day.
> 
> A few references,  
> The turmoil part is in relation to NU'EST's journey thus far.  
> Eminem is reportedly JR's rap inspiration, so I decided to explore that a bit. (he doesn't get a crush on Eminem, it's more like no matter how important Eminem becomes to him as a primary inspiration, he doesn't ever get colour because he personally doesn't want or need a romantic soulmate. a bit hard to understand I know but it's nearing midnight so give me a break? I'll work out the semantics tomorrow)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and maybe you guys can write your own aro/ace!JR? I think that would be really cool. 
> 
> For those that don't understand:  
> Friendly/Rivals/Inspirations/People who change your life in a major way: Names (fade as the person's influence fades, but doesn't ever fully disappear. Eg. Jonghyun would be influenced by people like S Coups, most likely in a major way considering how close they gotten, however, past the trainee days, it's unlikely they would still play a big role together, so the scars would fade slightly.)  
> Romance/Love: See colour (My headcanon in this AU is that some people on the ace-spectrum can see tinges of colour)
> 
> A fun thing to explore I think would be how some colours are so intense that it's technically black. How it would fit in this universe would be interesting.


End file.
